Posted on 11 March 2015

Justin LaPointe waters a seedbed during a spring cleaning of the Bridgehampton School’s greenhouse on Saturday, March 7. Photo by Michael Heller.

By Tessa Raebeck

Despite the snow piles, the potholes, and the threat of more 30-degree weather on the horizon, spring is on its way—at least at the Bridgehampton School.

A group of parents, teachers, and students came to school on Saturday, March 7, to clean up the school’s greenhouse before spring and prepare for the coming season.

For the past five years, the Bridgehampton School has been planting a garden on its grounds, primarily tended by the students and led by teacher Judiann Carmack-Fayyaz, who is also the chair of Slow Food East End, with help from a few other teachers. It evolved into a community garden about two years ago, and production is increasing this year, as a committed group of Bridgehampton parents has joined in, coming each Monday to work in the greenhouse.

Philippe Cheng, a parent at the school, redesigned the greenhouse layout this year to make more room—and grow more lettuce. The goal is to increase production and bring more fresh produce into the school’s cafeteria, while educating the students and community about the importance of slow food.

As part of its commitment to community-minded farming, healthy, mindful eating and sustainable, farm-to-table production practices, Slow Food East End funds master farmers for local school gardens. Zachary Johnson, a farmer at Sylvester Manor on Shelter Island, has been supervising and lending a hand in Bridgehampton.

Working together with Mr. Johnson and the school’s cafeteria staff, this season the gardeners will be producing different varieties of lettuce and snap peas, and in the long run onions, potatoes, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, and plenty of beets and carrots.

“We really hope to supply all of the lettuce that the cafeteria uses for the week, and to at least provide a vegetable throughout the year, that would be our goal,” said Ms. Carmack-Fayyaz.

Coursework aligns with the garden’s mission. There is a botany and agricultural production elective for Bridgehampton students to learn about growing food and the nutrition and culinary arts elective teaches them how to prepare and eat it.

“It’s very much about those principles of eating good, clean and fair food,” said Ms. Carmack-Fayyaz, who teaches the nutrition and culinary arts elective. Using the garden, students can learn about the creativity behind cooking.

While the students have been involved since the beginning through in-school electives and after-school clubs, two years ago Bridgehampton started the community garden with the goal of involving more people outside the school. The greenhouse now has 13 raised beds, 8-by 4-feet each, that members of the community can take over and use to grow whatever they please in exchange for helping out in the garden.

“That brought more people in, but it’s really the fact that the parents have come in [this year] and so now we have parents, faculty, and students, so we have the whole package—and an extremely supportive administration,” said Ms. Carmack-Fayyaz. “Everything is in place and—it’s just very exciting.”

As the school community has become more involved, so has the greater Bridgehampton community surrounding it. Local farmer Jenn Halsey Dupree will be coming to the school to help the gardeners plant some apple trees. There is already a small strawberry patch and blueberry bushes, and new raspberry bushes will soon be planted.

“Children are all excited about the fruit, they just love it,” Ms. Carmack-Fayyaz said.

On Saturday, the group made plans for future expansion and even greater involvement. Mr. Cheng came up with the concept of modeling the project off of a “field of dreams,” where you build it and they will come.

“I just loved that concept, because we’ve been working on that, but if we reach out and really get more and more people involved and have them have ownership in the garden, that could only make the project grow,” she said, adding the concept could potentially be brought to all the local school gardens.

The Bridgehampton garden team will be building two raised beds in the greenhouse using a grant received from Slow Food East End, and the ultimate goal is to raise enough funds for six more.

“Our idea is, well, let’s build them, we’ll build the two and people will see what it’s like and get excited and be part of the growth going forward, so that we can carry on building them and get community support for them,” she said.

Encouraging anyone who’s interested to stop by and become involved in any way they can, the gardeners at Bridgehampton School hope to continually raise community involvement not just to expand the raised beds in the greenhouse, but also the mission behind them; to raise awareness about what real food is, where it comes from, what to eat and how to eat it.

Posted on 24 September 2014

Judiann Carmack-Fayyaz is the chair of Slow Food East End, which celebrated its 10th anniversary this year. She discusses some of the group’s successes over the years, future projects and an upcoming fundraiser in Westhampton Beach.

Slow Food East End just celebrated its 10th anniversary. How has the organization evolved and expanded over the past 10 years?

Our quest for universal access is manifested in our novel programming, which is centered around education and the concept of Farm to Table. Master Farmers Program, Chefs to Schools, school garden mini-grants, educational outreach and curriculum development are our most important initiatives of the past few years. We have had the good fortune to develop powerful partnerships with some incredible like-minded groups such as Edible School Gardens, Josh Levine Memorial Foundation, Cornell Cooperative, Peconic Land Trust, Project Most and Sylvester Manor. That expression “Many hands make light work,” comes to mind. We have become much more effective by sharing resources and goals.

What do you consider some of the greatest accomplishments?

Our greatest accomplishment in my mind is the formation of a very dedicated group of Slow Food leaders and community supporters that is very focused on changing the way people eat and the way food is produced. Through team effort and hard work, we have accomplished some pretty incredible things. The school garden movement—and soon the school cooking movement—on the East End of Long Island would not be the same without the amazing financial and programmatic support of Slow Food East End. We owe all of this to the network of chefs, farmers, fisherman, educators, producers, concerned citizens, journalists, nutritionists and foodies that have donated so much of their time, energy and resources to our common goals. It takes a community!

Slow Food East End has been advertising the need for a master farmer. What does that position entail?

When educators, parents and community members wanted to teach children about food: where it came from, how to grow it and how to eat it, school gardens seemed the best place to accomplish that task. Today, the Edible School Garden Group counts about 25 school districts with school garden programs on the East End. It became apparent that many of us did not have the technical growing or gardening skills to run successful programs. Farming requires special knowledge! Monthly meetings did not translate into help on the ground, where questions from “Where should I put my garden?” to “How do you harvest sweet potatoes?” perplexed many. The Master Farmer program was born. Master farmers bring different levels of gardening/farming experience to the table. Our four master farmers have truly been inspirational as well incredibly helpful in getting programs off the ground and into sustainability.

On Sunday, September 28, the American Culinary Federation Eastern Long Island Chefs Chapter is co-hosting the first annual S.E.E.D. fundraiser with Slow Food East End. What will the fundraiser benefit?

The chefs of the Eastern Long Island chapter of the American Culinary Federation very much want to give back to the community and make an impact on changing the way people eat too. S.E.E.D. aims to celebrate the chefs, wineries, breweries, farmers and fishermen who produce the delicious bounty that we enjoy so much out here. Proceeds from S.E.E.D. will help fund Slow Food East End’s Chefs to Schools Program, which aims to bring chefs into schools. Chefs will receive a small stipend covering time and supplies to visit schools with the aim of teaching children of all ages how to prepare, cook and enjoy food. The program is still in development and will be officially launched sometime very soon. This new initiative completes the circle of farm to table.

For more information about Slow Food East End or Sunday’s fundraiser, visit slowfoodeastend.org.

The Montauk Project, Chris Wood, Mark Schiavoni, Jasper Conroy and Jack Marshall, performs at Swallow East in Montauk on Friday, February 28. Photo by Ian Cooke.

By Tessa Raebeck

From fast-growing local bands to slow food snail suppers, there’s plenty to do on the East End this weekend. Here are some highlights:

The Montauk Project is playing at Swallow East in the band’s hometown of Montauk Saturday, July 26 at 8 p.m. The local beach grunge rockers, who were born and bred on the island and are steadily gaining more recognition by music critics and enthusiasts alike, released their first full-length album, “Belly of the Beast,” in March. The band, which consists of East Hampton’s Chris Wood and Jack Marshall, Sag Harbor’s Mark Schiavoni and Jasper Conroy of Montauk, will be joined by hip hop/rock hybrid PUSHMETHOD, who were voted the best New York City hip hop group of 2013 by The Deli magazine.

Eastern Surf Magazine said of the East End group, “The Montauk Project is far tighter than every other surf-inspired East Coast rock band to come before it.” Swallow East is located at 474 West Lake Drive in Montauk. For more information, call (631) 668-8344.

Also on Saturday, People Say NY presents an open mic and art show at the Hayground School in Bridgehampton, starting at 8 p.m. In addition to featured grunge pop artist Adam Baranello and featured performer Danny Matos, who specializes in spoken word and hip hop, performers of all ages are encouraged to participate.

According to its mission statement, People Say NY “brings art back to the fundamentals, so we can remind ourselves why artists and art lovers alike do what we do.”

The night of music, comedy and poetry has a sign-up and $10 cover and is at the Hayground School, located at 151 Mitchell Lane in Bridgehampton. For more information, visit peoplesayny.com or check out @PeopleSayNY on Twitter and Facebook.

Guests are asked to bring a potluck dish to share that serves six to eight people and aligns with the slow food mission, as well as local beverages. Capacity is limited to 50 and tickets are $20 for Slow Food East End members and $25 for non-members. The price includes a copy of the new cookbook. Proceeds from the evening will be shared between Slow Food East End and Edible School Gardens, Ltd. Click here to RSVP.

From 11:15 a.m. to noon, guests will visit the Eastville Community Historical Society Complex to see the quilt exhibit “Warmth” at the St. David AME Zion Church and Cemetery. A luncheon catered by Page follows from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor.

The Peter Marcelle Project in Southampton will exhibit the Hilton Brothers, an artistic identity that emerged from a series of collaborations by artists Christopher Makos and Paul Solberg, from July 26 to August 5.

“Andy wasn’t the kind of dandy to wear a flower in his lapel, but as ‘Andy Dandy’ demonstrates, sometimes by just altering the image of one’s work or oneself, a new beauty blooms,” the gallery said in a press release.

The gallery is open Friday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. or by appointment.

Posted on 05 February 2014

Monasia Street shows off her robot’s skills to her classmates during a robotics demonstration at the Bridgehampton School February 4 (Michael Heller photo).

By Tessa Raebeck

Ask seventh grader Monasia Street what her favorite subject in school is and you may be surprised by the answer: sonar detection. Along with the rest of her class at the Bridgehampton School, Monasia has just finished designing, building and programming robots that can trace roads using light sensors, turn on at the sound of a clap and, Monasia’s favorite, spin around upon detecting an oncoming structure.

Under the guidance of technology teacher Judiann Carmack-Fayyaz, Bridgehampton students are learning to write code and program computers, skills considered vital in the ever-expanding technology fields.

“The curriculum that goes with this is fabulous, ” Carmack-Fayyaz told the parents, students and administrators gathered at the school board meeting last Wednesday. “It really integrates science, math and technology.”

Carmack-Fayyaz showed a video to the board by the Hour of Code, an organization dedicated to ensuring every American student has the opportunity to try computer science.

In the video, a young Steve Jobs says everyone in the country should learn how to program a computer and President Barack Obama encourages students, “Don’t just play on your phone, program it.”

Dr. Lois Favre, Bridgehampton’s superintendent, has committed to a five-year plan to improve the school’s technology curriculum and included a number of updates in a preliminary draft of the district’s 2014-2015 budget presented at Wednesday’s meeting.

The technology program is housed down a winding staircase in the basement of the school. The room has many purposes; students split their time between a laboratory shop area used for building and a computer room for design and programming. The seventh grade just finished its robotics course and now the eighth grade gets a turn in the lab.

Claudio Figueroa, a high school junior, assists Carmack-Fayyaz in the classroom. On Tuesday, the eighth graders received kits for a new electronic “Simon” project. Figueroa explained to the younger students that they would build a game sort of like Simon Says and helped them interpret the directions.

As the eighth graders unwrapped their next challenge, the seventh graders were busy playing around with their programs and assembling an obstacle course used to show off the robots’ skills.

After pushing some buttons on her robot, Paige Hoyt watched as it expertly wiggled along a U-shaped black road on the course. Also in the seventh grade, Paige explained how the robot uses its light sensor to differentiate between the black road and white surface and its “B and C motors” to move forward.

“Robotics is one of my favorite classes,” said Aziza Brunson. Her friend Jalisa Hopson agrees, “I like building the robots and programming [them] for swing turn and point turn.”

“I like how you get to teach robots to do their own thing,” said Autumn Coffey, a seventh grader who uses her robot to figure out the circumference of a circle.

The kids understand the language used to code the robots; they align squares labeled only with pictures or letters in the computer program and know exactly what that will create on the obstacle course.

The technology classroom is loud with discussion and filled with energy as students move around sharing ideas, testing programs and showing off their designs.

Monasia patiently explained how setting the robot to 1,045 degrees would allow it to “do a little spin but not too long.”

After her robot moved forward, hit a house, detected the impact with its touch sensor and spun around, she said of the effort to design and build the machine, “It was kind of easy.”